HG Poetics

…

That Day!

It was a dream.

            And I saw

Winthrop and Cotton

on that day,

            cast down

in a pit, crying out

for a drop of Rhody

            water –

and saw Hutchinson,

and Miantonomi,

            and Mary Dyer,

and the orphan

with the red neck –

            I saw them

high up there

in Happyopolis!

            Flying,

Floating, and

free as -!

            And it was

a sweet dream (only a

            dream)

.…

© Henry Gould

from In RI

AB - To blog or not to blog, this is the question… 

HG - I often have mixed feelings about blogging.  I go in and out of activity there.  Sometimes I think it detracts from the mental concentration I need to apply to more long-term writing projects.  Also I think there are issues of privacy which I am not considering carefully enough.

On the other hand, for me, blogging has many practical advantages.  It fits in with my work routine without affecting it adversely.  It has allowed me to communicate poems and ideas, as well as enter into dialogue with others, in ways which I could not imagine 10 years ago. 

AB - How would you characterize your blog you should describe it to one of us, i.e. another blogger? 

HG - My blog is a personal platform for my ruminations on poetry, and a venue for interpreting and publicizing my own work. 

AB - I sometimes regard my blog as a safe place where I can meet my chosen people, is this the same for you?  

HG - I have a less positive feeling about internet communication.  It often seems a poor substitute or replacement for direct correspondence and conversation.  On the other hand, my skills in those areas have always been somewhat limited, so blogging serves as a sort of crutch.

AB - I am wondering do we sometimes forget that personal remarks, notes, poems are there for everybody to be seen? 

HG - Hopefully we are taking care to protect our own and others' privacy.  But sometimes I worry about the amount of personal family and biographical detail I have included on my blog. 

AB - Do you post many poems on your blog? Is there an actual difference in-between publishing online, mainly through a blog, or printed publishing? 

HG - I post a lot of poetry on my blog.  This reaches a fair number of people, but I wonder about the quality of readers' attention on the internet.  I myself do not read much of OTHER'S poetry online.  It doesn't appeal to me.  This may have to do with the current technology of computer screens; also with the fact that I spend a lot of work time already on the computer.  The advent of "reader-friendly" e-text technology is very interesting to me, since many of my own publications are available now as downloads, and it might make reading electronic texts more enjoyable for me as well.

AB - What kind of actual or immaterial feedback do you receive from publishing online through a blog? 

HG - I have had requests for poems from magazine editors, based on blog entries.  I have also received encouraging comments on poems posted on my blog. 

AB - What do you think of the Blogosphere when related to blogs that deal with poetry? 

HG - I think of the Blogosphere as primarily a chit-chat medium.  The level of discourse, in terms of literary style or valid scholarship, is pretty low.  But the access to scholarly material, which is also online, has the potential to improve the quality of some blogs.   In general it seems the Blogosphere's level of interest in poetry blogs is analogous to the interest of society at large in poetry.  Society may have a more sane and healthy attitude toward poetry, however, than poetry enthusiasts do.

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